Notre Dame rolls to ACC title win
Jerian Grant scored 24 points and No. 11 Notre Dame took over with a 26-3 second-half run to rally past No. 19 North Carolina, 90-82, Saturday night in the Atlantic Coast Conference title game at Greensboro, N.C.
Pat Connaughton added 20 points for the third-seeded Irish (29-5), who went from trailing by nine to ahead by double figures with a stunning burst that seized momentum in what amounted to a road game and sent the program to its first title in any league.
Connaughton made two three-pointers during Notre Dame’s run, which was set loose by a few ill-timed turnovers by the Tar Heels (2411). When it was over, the Irish had turned a 63-54 deficit into an 80-66 lead with 2:54 left and largely silenced a home-state crowd.
Cyclones win Big 12
Georges Niang scored 19 points, Abdel Nader made the go-ahead foul shots with 48 seconds to go, and No. 13 Iowa State rallied from a 17point second-half hole to beat No. 9 Kansas, 70-66, in the Big 12 championship game at Kansas City, Mo.
It was the fifth straight game — including all three in the tournament — that the Cyclones (25-8) rallied from a double-digit deficit. Wayne Selden Jr. had a career-high 25 points for Kansas (26-8).
Aztecs lose in final
Josh Adams made a big three-pointer with a minute left and Wyoming (25-9) earned its first NCAA trip in 13 years with a 45-43 victory over San Diego State (26-8) in the Mountain West Conference final at Las Vegas.
The Cowboys shot five for 22 in the second half and went 8:31 without a field goal, but Adams had the biggest one with 1:02 left, the threepointer that put Wyoming up 43-41. San Diego State didn’t score again until Malik Pope’s basket with less than a second left, and Wyoming earned its first conference tournament title since 1988, when it was in the WAC.
Other tournaments
Willie Cauley-Stein scored 18 points, Andrew Harrison had 15 and No. 1 Kentucky routed depleted Auburn, 91-67, in Nashville to reach the Southeastern Conference final and improve to 33-0. The Wildcats, who broke the school-record winning streak of 32 games set from Dec. 5, 1953, to Jan. 8, 1955, will play for their 27th SEC title today against No. 21 Arkansas (26-7), which beat Georgia (21-11) in the other semifinal, 60-49.
Bronson Koenig’s careerhigh 19 points lifted No. 6 Wisconsin over Purdue, 71-51, in a Big Ten semifinal at Chicago to reach 30 wins for the fourth time. The top-seeded Badgers (30-3) can equal the school record for victories in a season with a win today against Michigan State (2310), which rode Travis Trice’s 20 points to a 62-58 win over No. 8 Maryland (27-6) in the other semifinal.
Dylan Ennis scored 16 points, Josh Hart had 15 in his latest strong performance off the bench, and No. 4 Villanova (32-2) thumped Xavier, 69-52, in the Big East championship game in New York to take a major step toward locking up a No. 1 NCAA regional seeding.
Defending national champion Connecticut (2013) sustained its hopes for an NCAA bid with a 47-42 win over Tulsa (22-10) in an American Athletic Conference semifinal at Hartford, Conn. The Huskies (20-13) will face No. 20 SMU (26-6), which advanced with a 69-56 win over Temple (23-10).
Fifth-seeded Virginia Commonwealth overpowered 24th-ranked Davidson, 93-73, in Brooklyn to reach the Atlantic 10 final for the third straight year. The Rams (25-9) ended a 10game winning streak by the top-seeded Wildcats (24-7) and today will face Dayton (25-7), which defeated Rhode Island, 56-52.
NCAA scoring leader Tyler Harvey had 18 points as visiting Eastern Washington (26-8) beat Montana, 69-65, in the Big Sky final.
Remi Barry scored 21 points, Tshilidzi Nephawe had 18 points and 10 rebounds, and New Mexico State (22-10) beat Seattle, 80-61, in the Western Athletic Conference final at Las Vegas.
Steve Moundou-Missi made a 15-foot jumper with 7.2 seconds left to give Harvard (22-7) a 53-51 victory over Yale (22-10) in a onegame Ivy League playoff at Philadelphia, and its fourth straight NCAA berth.
Robert Brown scored 22 points to lead Alabama Birmingham (19-15) to a 73-60 victory over Middle Tennessee (19-16) in the Conference USA final at Birmingham.
Xavier Ford and Shannon Evans scored 18 points apiece as Buffalo (23-9), coached by former Duke AllAmerican and March Madness icon Bobby Hurley, earned its first trip to the NCAA tournament by beating top-seeded Central Michigan (23-8) in the MidAmerican Conference final at Cleveland, 89-84.
Texas Southern beat Southern, 62-58, in the Southwestern Athletic Conference final at Houston. . . . Stephen F. Austin earned its second straight NCAA bid with an 83-70 win over Sam Houston State in the Southland Conference final at Katy, Texas. . . . Hampton won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference title, 82-62 over Delaware State. . . . Albany beat Stony Brook, 51-50, for the America East title. . . . Georgia Southern beat Louisiana Monroe, 44-43, and Georgia State edged Louisiana Lafayette, 83-79, in the Sun Belt semifinals.